COMMUNISM, REBELLION, AND SOVIET INTERVENTION

The divided PDPA succeeded the Daoud regime with a new government under the
leadership of Nur Muhammad Taraki of the Khalq faction. In 1967 the PDPA had
split into two groups--Khalq and Parcham--but ten years later, the efforts of
the Soviet Union had brought the factions back together, however unstable the
merger.

A critical assessment of the period between the Saur (April) Revolution of
1978 and the complete withdrawal of Soviet troops in February 1989 requires
analysis of three different, yet closely intertwined, series of events: those
within the PDPA government of Afghanistan; those involving the mujahidin
("holy warriors") who fought the communist regime in Kabul from bases
in Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan; and those concerning the Soviet Union's
invasion in December 1979 and withdrawal nine years later.

In Kabul, the initial cabinet appeared to be carefully constructed to
alternate ranking positions between Khalqis and Parchamis: Taraki was prime
minister, Karmal was senior deputy prime minister, and Hafizullah Amin of Khalq
was foreign minister. In early July, however, the Khalqi purge of Parchamis
began with Karmal dispatched to Czechoslovakia as ambassador (along with others
shipped out of the country). Amin appeared to be the principal beneficiary of
this strategy, since he now ranked second, behind Taraki. The regime also issued
a series of decrees, many of which were viewed by conservatives as opposing
Islam, including one declaring the equality of the sexes. Land reform was
decreed, as was a prohibition on usury.

Internal rebellion against the regime began in Afghanistan in the summer and
fall of 1978. A number of attempts by Parchamis to oust the Khalqis were
reported. The intense rivalry between Taraki and Amin within the Khalq faction
heated up, culminating in the death--admittedly the murder--of Taraki. In
September 1979, Taraki's followers, with Soviet complicity, had made several
attempts on Amin's life. The final attempt backfired, however, and it was Taraki
who was eliminated and Amin, who assumed power in Afghanistan. The Soviets had
at first backed Amin, but they realized that he was too rigidly Marxist-Leninist
to survive politically in a country as conservative and religious as
Afghanistan.

Taraki's death was first noted in the Kabul Times on 10 October and reported
that the former leader only recently hailed as the "great teacher...great
genius...great leader" had died quietly "of serious illness, which he
had been suffering for some time." Less than three months later, after the
Amin government had been overthrown, the newly installed followers of Babrak
Karmal gave another account of Taraki's death. According to this account, Amin
ordered the commander of the palace guard to have Taraki executed. Taraki
reportedly was suffocated with a pillow over his head. Amin's emergence from the
power struggle within the small divided communist party in Afghanistan alarmed
the Soviet and would usher in the series of events which lead to the Soviet
invasion.

During this period, many Afghans fled to Pakistan and Iran and began
organizing a resistance movement to the "atheistic" and
"infidel" communist regime backed by the Soviets. Although the groups
organizing in the Pakistani city of Peshawar would later, after the Soviet
invasion, be described by the western press as "freedom fighters"--as
if their goal were to establish a representative democracy in Afghanistan--in
reality these groups each had agendas of their own that were often far from
democratic.

Outside observers usually identify the two warring groups as
"fundamentalists" and "traditionalists." Rivalries between
these groups continued during the Afghan civil war that followed the Soviet
withdrawal. The rivalries of these groups brought the plight of the Afghans to
the attention of the West, and it was they who received military assistance from
the United States and a number of other nations.

The fundamentalists based their organizing principle around mass politics and
included several divisions of the Jamiat-i-Islami. The leader of the parent
branch, Burhanuddin Rabbani, began organizing in Kabul before repression of
religious conservatives, which began in 1974, forced him to flee to Pakistan
during Daoud's regime. Perhaps best known among the leaders was Gulbaddin
Hikmatyar, who broke with Rabbani to form another resistance group, the
Hizb-e-Islami, which became Pakistan's favored arms recipient. Another split,
engineered by Yunus Khales, resulted in a second group using the name
Hizb-e-Islami--a group that was somewhat more moderate than Hikmatyar's. A
fourth fundamentalist group was the Ittehad-i-Islami led by Rasool Sayyaf.
Rabbani's group received its greatest support from northern Afghanistan where
the best known resistance commander in Afghanistan--Ahmad Shah Massoud--a Tajik,
like Rabbani, operated against the Soviets with considerable success.

The organizing principles of traditionalist groups differed from those of the
fundamentalists. Formed from loose ties among ulama in Afghanistan, the
traditionalist leaders were not concerned, unlike fundamentalists, with
redefining Islam in Afghan society but instead focused on the use of the sharia
as the source of law (interpreting the sharia is a principal role of
the ulama). Among the three groups in Peshawar, the most important was the
Jebh-e-Nejat-e-Milli led by Sibghatullah Mojadeddi. Some of the traditionalists
were willing to accept restoration of the monarchy and looked to former King
Zahir Shah, exiled in Italy, as the ruler.

Other ties also were important in holding together some resistance groups.
Among these were links within sufi orders, such as the Mahaz-e-Milli
Islami, one of the traditionalist groups associated with the Gilani sufi
order led by Pir Sayyid Gilani. Another group, the Shia Muslims of Hazarajat,
organized the refugees in Iran.

In Kabul, Amin's ascension to the top position was quick. The Soviets had a
hand in Taraki's attempts on Amin's life and were not pleased with his rise.
Amin began unfinished attempts to moderate what many Afghans viewed as an
anti-Islam regime. Promising more religious freedom, repairing mosques,
presenting copies of the Koran to religious groups, invoking the name of Allah
in his speeches, and declaring that the Saur Revolution was "totally based
on the principles of Islam." Yet many Afghans held Amin responsible for the
regime's harshest measures and the Soviets, worried about their huge investment
in Afghanistan might be jeopardized, increased the number of
"advisers" in Afghanistan. Amin become the target of several
assassination attempts in early and mid-December 1979.

The Soviets began their invasion of Afghanistan on December 25, 1979. Within
two days, they had secured Kabul, deploying a special Soviet assault unit
against Darulaman Palace, where elements of the Afghan army loyal to Amin put up
a fierce, but brief resistance. With Amin's death at the palace, Babrak Karmal,
exiled leader of the Parcham faction of the PDPA was installed by the Soviets as
Afghanistan's new head of government.

A number of theories have been advanced for the Soviet action. These
interpretations of Soviet motives do not always agree--what is known for certain
is that the decision was influenced by many factors--that in Brezhnev's words
the decision to invade Afghanistan was truly "was no simple decision."
Two factors were certain to have figured heavily in Soviet calculations. The
Soviet Union, always interested in establishing a cordon sanitaire of
subservient or neutral states on its frontiers, was increasingly alarmed at the
unstable, unpredictable situation on its southern border. Perhaps as important,
the Brezhnev doctrine declared that the Soviet Union had a "right" to
come to the assistance of an endangered fellow socialist country. Presumably
Afghanistan was a friendly regime that could not survive against growing
pressure from the resistance without direct assistance from the Soviet Union.

Whatever the Soviet goals may have been, the international response was sharp
and swift. United States President Jimmy Carter, reassessing the strategic
situation in his State of the Union address in January, 1980, identified
Pakistan as a "front-line state" in the global struggle against
communism. He reversed his stand of a year earlier that aid to Pakistan be
terminated as a result of its nuclear program and offered Pakistan a military
and economic assistance package if it would act as a conduit for United States
and other assistance to the mujahidin. Pakistani president Zia ul-Haq
refused Carter's package but later a larger aid offer from the Reagan
administration was accepted. Questions about Pakistan's nuclear program were,
for the time being, set aside. Assistance also came from China, Egypt, and Saudi
Arabia. Also forth coming was international aid to help Pakistan deal with more
than 3 million fleeing Afghan refugees.

The Soviets grossly underestimated the huge cost of the Afghan
venture--described, in time, as the Soviet Union's Vietnam--to their state.
International opposition also became increasingly vocal. The foreign ministers
of the Organization of the Islamic Conference deplored the invasion and demanded
Soviet withdrawal at a meeting in Islamabad in January 1980. Action by the
United Nations (UN) Security Council was impossible because the Soviets were
armed with veto power, but the UN General Assembly regularly passed resolutions
opposing the Soviet occupation.

Pakistan proposed talks among the countries directly involved and, although
they did not meet, Pakistan and Afghanistan began "proximity" talks in
June 1982 through UN official Diego Cordovez. Although these sessions continued
for a seemingly interminable length of time--joined by the Soviet Union and the
United States--they eventually resulted in an agreement on Soviet withdrawal
from Afghanistan.

Other events outside Afghanistan, especially in the Soviet Union, contributed
to the eventual agreement. The toll in casualties, economic resources, and loss
of support at home increasingly felt in the Soviet Union was causing criticism
of the occupation policy. Brezhnev died in 1982, and after two short-lived
successors, Mikhail Gorbachev assumed leadership in March 1985. As Gorbachev
opened up the country's system, it became more clear that the Soviet Union
wished to find a face-saving way to withdraw from Afghanistan.

The civil war in Afghanistan was guerrilla warfare and a war of attrition
between the several communist (that is, PDPA) controlled regimes and the mujahidin;
it cost both sides a great deal. Many Afghans, perhaps as many as five million,
or one-quarter of the country's population, fled to Pakistan and Iran where they
organized into guerrilla groups to strike Soviet and government forces inside
Afghanistan. Others remained in Afghanistan and also formed fighting groups;
perhaps most notable was one led by Ahmad Shah Massoud in the northeastern part
of Afghanistan. These various groups were supplied with funds to purchase arms,
principally from the United States, Saudi Arabia, China, and Egypt. Despite high
casualties on both sides, pressure continued to mount on the Soviet Union,
especially after the United States brought in Stinger anti-aircraft missiles
which severely reduced the effectiveness of Soviet air cover.

The effects of the civil war and Soviet invasion had an impact well beyond
Afghanistan's boundaries. Most observers consider Afghanistan a major step along
the road to the eventual dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Meanwhile, a change had taken place in Kabul. On May 4, 1986, Karmal resigned
as secretary general of the PDPA and was replaced by Najibullah. Karmal retained
the presidency for a while, but power had shifted to Najibullah, who had
previously headed the State Information Service (Khadamate Ettelaate
Dowlati--KHAD), the Afghan secret service agency. Najibullah tried to diminish
differences with the resistance and appeared prepared to allow Islam a greater
role as well as legalize opposition groups, but any moves he made toward
concessions were rejected out of hand by the mujahidin.

Proximity talks in Geneva continued, and on April 14, 1988, Pakistan and
Afghanistan reached an agreement providing for the withdrawal of Soviet troops
from Afghanistan in nine months, the creation of a neutral Afghan state, and the
repatriation of the Afghan refugees. The United States and the Soviet Union
would act as guarantors of the agreement. The treaty was less well-received by
many mujahidin groups who demanded Najibullah's departure as the price
for advising their refugee followers to return to Afghanistan.

Nevertheless, the agreement on withdrawal held, and on February 15, 1989, the
last Soviet troops departed on schedule from Afghanistan. Their exit, however,
did not bring either lasting peace or resettlement, as Afghanistan went from one
civil war to another.

* * *

An indispensable book for exploring Afghan history is Louis Dupree's
monumental work, Afghanistan, which includes a wealth of information
from the point of view of a scholar who spent many years in the country. The
foremost British history of Afghanistan, W. Kerr Fraser-Tytler's book, Afghanistan:
A Study of Political Developments in Central and Southern Asia, written
from the perspective of years spent in the region, has valuable insights into
all periods of Afghan history but especially the nineteenth century. Arnold
Charles Fletcher's Afghanistan: Highway of Conquest also provides
useful insights. In the twentieth century, more detailed studies of specific
subperiods have been recorded. Leon B. Poullada's Reform and Rebellion in
Afghanistan, 1919-1929 is a fascinating and well-written scholarly study of
King Amanullah's reign that also includes insights applicable to other periods
of Afghan history. (For further information and complete citations, see
Bibliography.)